Oh dear, we've made the headlines again
He's internationally famous now
The Guardian columnist Jessica Abrahams has got it wrong: Adrian Vassallo is not stepping down because of divorce.
In fact, if you read his interview of last Sunday really carefully, you’ll find that he’s not stepping down at all.
He’s pre-empting a possible (but highly unlikely) scenario in which he is deselected by the Labour Party for the 2013 general election.
But the Labour Party won’t deselect him because if it does, it will have to deselect that Marlene Pullicino as well. And quite a few others, too – but it can’t afford to lose the personal support they get from the electorate.
Nor can Labour afford to overlook the fact that MPs like Adrian Vassallo and Marlene Pullicino really are the voice of those who voted for them.
Labour’s core support comes from people who think as they do. It certainly does not come from the demographic where support for divorce legislation is highest.
So, here we go again, making the news for all the wrong reasons as usual. This might make Adrian Vassallo happy at least, because Malta comes across as a piece of Iran that’s somehow found itself in the European Union. Ah, but here’s the thing: Iran has divorce.
Another thing: I really can’t STAND the way that even columnists for newspapers of standing, like The Guardian, can’t distinguish between ‘illegal’ and ‘just not available’.
Ms Abrahams and the rest of you: it’s perfectly legal to be divorced in Malta. You just have to get your divorce elsewhere. And guess what? Malta recognises divorce and the divorces of Maltese citizens (obtained elsewhere) are registered at the Public Records Office (Public Registry).
DIVORCE, MALTESE STYLE
A Maltese MP is standing down over controversial plans to make divorce legal in the country. Yes, you read that right.
Jessica Abrahams, www.guardian.co.uk
today
On Sunday, Malta Labour party MP Adrian Vassallo announced that he will be standing down over plans to allow couples to divorce.
Let me explain. It may surprise some of you to learn that in Malta, a member of the Commonwealth and an EU state, divorce is still illegal.
And this isn’t one of those outdated laws that they somehow never got around to changing, like cab drivers not being able to pick up peopleinfected with plague.
Malta was a British colony until 1964, and though divorce has been allowed for an elite few in British law for centuries, and for all citizens since 1857, banning divorce is something the Maltese people chose to write into their constitution during the 1960s. In the deeply Catholic nations of the Mediterranean this was relatively common at the time.
Divorce was still illegal in countries like Italy, Portugal and Spain, and even in the Republic of Ireland. But these places all legalised divorce in the period between 1971 and 1994. Somehow Malta has found itself one of only two countries left in the world where divorce is still illegal, along with the Philippines.
The main issue here can be found in Chapter 1, Article 2 (2) of theMaltese constitution: “The authorities of the Roman Catholic apostolic church have the duty and the right to teach which principles are right and which are wrong.”
Whilst the constitution does allow freedom of religion, it also establishes Catholicism as the official state religion. Some 98% percent of the Maltese population still identify themselves as Catholic. The remaining 2% consists largely of small Muslim communities created by immigration from Africa and Protestant communities formed by British retirees.
Defying the European trend, the population shows no sign of secularisation at all and the issue of divorce is not going to be straightforward.
There have been murmurings about the D-word for a while now. Back in 2008, when Joseph Muscat was elected as leader of the Labour party, he quickly announced that his party was ready to open up the issue for debate and it was clear that he would be in favour of new legislation. In response, prime minister Lawrence Gonzi, leader of the more conservative Nationalist party that is considered to be closely allied to the church, assured the public that he too was willing for such discussions to begin. But nothing much happened.
Then in February 2010, it all kicked off. Muscat finally decided that enough was enough. The Maltese people needed to have somebody representing this as an option for them. He declared that, if elected prime minister at the next election in 2013, he would put forward a private members’ bill in favour of divorce.
The reaction within the party was immediate. Whilst most Labour MPs seem to be in favour of the bill, several expressed their opposition to it. One MP in particular, the aforementioned Adrian Vassallo, sparked controversy last week when he said he would rather live in Iran than a country where morals are lax and pornography is available in hotel rooms.
In light of comments like this, it’s easy to ridicule people like Vassallo as outdated and irrelevant. Very easy in fact, when you consider that he is also anti-pornography and pro-censorship. But when you learn that MaltaToday alleges another anti-divorce Labour MP is separated from her husband and lives with another man, it becomes clear that this is more than simply a question of conservatism or dogma.
There is genuine concern here about the effects of legalising divorce. Like most Mediterranean countries, life is very family-centred. Although things are beginning to change, it is still relatively common for people to live at home with their parents until they get married.
There is fear that a breakdown of the family unit will mean a breakdown in social structures – and before we leap to criticise these views as shockingly backward, it is worth remembering that our own newly-elected prime minister has similar views himself. When Vassallo warned us all to “Look at the state of the UK, one of the first countries to introduce divorce … it’s a broken society”, he plucked his words straight out of the Conservative election campaign.
Malta has found itself at a crossroads – the same crossroads, in fact, that almost every country in the world has found itself at at some point in the past. Which direction it chooses to take is, as yet, unclear. But though its position will seem to many absurd, we should retain some sympathy for this small country as it navigates a difficult path to reform and legal parity with the rest of the world.
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Here’s the link, because the comments are interesting, too:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jun/16/malta-divorce-legal
The cheek of some commentators! They accuse us of being a theocracy when their queen is head of the Church of England and the state subsidises the church.
Pot calling the kettle black.
May I suggest that you amend your site so that links are opened in a separate tab or window?
Insomma, hawwadni ha nifmek.
Ms Abrahams hasn’t checked her facts properly. Nor does she see the shallowness of a prime minister putting forward a private member’s bill. Please put her right on this, Daphne.
[Daphne – Actually, I’m rather glad this came up. Beneath another post, I’ve been accused by some patronising twat of not meeting the journalistic standards of the London broadsheets, and the grand newspapers of France and Italy – but I pointed out that he can’t know many (and I have met several) or he would think otherwise. I’ve been interviewed several times on issues like divorce and immigration, for instance, and end up having to not just give my interviewers the facts – when they should strictly speaking only need my opinion – but also telephone numbers, contacts, lines of enquiry, the works – oh, and also correcting their misconceptions.]
This occurred to me too. While there are no gross inaccuracies in Abrahams’s report, it seems that, not being personally familiar with Malta, she relies heavily on hearsay and newspaper reports. On the whole it makes you wonder whether media reports about other countries are quite as credible as they should be.
I expect better of The Guardian. The gross superficiality of this piece is astounding. Now you’re going to tell me The Economist is really a madhouse full of hacks writing for the highest bidder.
I have read in one of your posts that it is not possible for a leader of a political party to present a private members bill? Can you tell me why this is so? An oppostion leader is after all a leader of a party not in office and therefore does not hold any ministerial duty. Is this a party rule or a house of reps rule? Or is it just a convention?
[Daphne – It is at times like this that I feel like running around howling. I’ve written about this matter several times and I don’t think I could have been clearer. It’s not as though I’m renowned for the obfuscating use of language, but rather for the opposite. Any MP can bring a private member’s bill before the house. It’s called a member’s bill because it can be brought by any member of parliament, and it’s called private because it is done on an individual basis and the party has nothing to do with it. The leader of a political party is an MP like any other and can put a private member’s bill before the house.
BUT – and this is the big but – a party leader does not NEED to use a private member’s bill. He is the party leader: he can make it a party bill, use the whip and get his party behind him. Private member’s bills are there for MPs who don’t have the support of their party leader, and for MPs who are not aligned to any party. What Muscat is saying here is that he is the party leader but doesn’t have the support of his party on divorce – or that he is scared to make it a party bill and use the whip because there will be mutiny, MPs will resign the whip and Labour will lose the vote. Another big BUT – Muscat doesn’t need to wait until he is prime minister to put a private member’s bill on divorce before the house. He can do it now.
What’s stopping him? It will be less embarrassing if it is defeated now than when he is prime minister (and it will be defeated, whenever, without the party whip). Also, if he loses it now, that gives him the chance to say: ‘I tried. Now when I am prime minister I will make it a party bill and use the whip, to ensure that it gets through.’ He isn’t doing that for two reasons: he knows that many people can’t distinguish between a private member’s bill and a party bill, and that they think he is promising divorce legislation which means they will vote for him on that false premise; and, he doesn’t have the support of his party and of Labour’s core vote on the matter of divorce and so can’t include it in the party electoral programme.]
Not a factual report.
Ms Abrahams is, in reality, a student, not a Guardian journalist, and this appears to be her first article (looking at her article history will reveal that).
She writes for The Journal, which is an Edinburgh-based fortnightly student tabloid.
It’s a pity, this article doesn’t do any justice to students or journalists, much less to the Maltese.
Daphne, I was never as patient as you are even when I was your age. Keep it up.
This is common sense. You do not need to be an authority on Hansard to understand this.
If a PM feels constrained to present a private member’s bill he will first submit his resignation as head of government and party leader and go home.
Then, when the ensuing rumpus is over, he will go back to the house and present his bill.
Only Joey would contemplate doing otherwise because he is a twerp.
One of the comments: “This is a country (Malta) which is 98% Catholic (the remaining 2% being immigrant). ”
Kulhadd jara l-istess oggett minn lenti differenti!
Oh come on people, we all know marriage is just another excuse to party…or pay less taxes…so what’s the point of having this debate anyway.
I’d rather see politicians focus their efforts on more pressing issues like childcare, or what happens to the children of divorcees, or separated parents.
People seem to be ignoring the fact that most ‘Problem Kids’ are coming from irresponsible parents who go around spawning without realising that they are just contributing to the country’s growing ignorance quota.
People are so consumed with wanting to have the ‘option’ of divorcing, when they should just revisit the whole idea of marriage in the first place.
If you do not want commitment and responsibility, then DON’T get married.
“……or pay less taxes’ actually some married couples pay more taxes than if they were singles.
@pietru Pawl – where on earth did you get that idea that married people pay less taxes? A married man with four children gets a tax rebate of just LM4000 per year for a family of 6, whilst single persons get Lm3500 rebate. If you had said that married persons both working with no kids get more tax benefits I would agree since they get double the allowance of a family of 6 with one bread winner. But that only means that the law is an arse as family is considered as excess baggage to the government and is not given the real deal.